A father passing by his son's bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to 'Dad.' With the worst premonition he opened the envelope with trembling hands and read the letter.

Dear Dad:

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you.

I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice. But I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am. But it's not only the passion...Dad she's pregnant.

Stacy said that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone. We'll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for cocaine and ecstasy.

In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Stacy can get better. She deserves it. Don't worry Dad. I'm 15 and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I'm sure that we will be back to visit so that you can get to know your grandchildren.

Love,

Your Son John

PS. Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Tommy's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than a report card that's in my center desk drawer.

VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with. ...

Naturally, one can't have "victory", no, that would not be nuanced. "Sustainable stability" (pardon me, but isn't that repetitive & redundant?) is plenty good enough for the real goal of eliminating Iraq as a threat to the security of the United States. What the Iraqis do from that point on is up to them, as it should be.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done...

Amazing what our troops, with no formal training in city management much less nation building, are accomplishing with new tactics. And isn't it interesting to see that Heroes are still necessary? Is Patraeus the indispensable man?

But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).

In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.

In the past, few Iraqi units could do more than provide a few “jundis” (soldiers) to put a thin Iraqi face on largely American operations. Today, in only a few sectors did we find American commanders complaining that their Iraqi formations were useless — something that was the rule, not the exception, on a previous trip to Iraq in late 2005....

Of course, it had to end on a sour note and it did:

How much longer should American troops keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part? And how much longer can we wear down our forces in this mission? These haunting questions underscore the reality that the surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.

Still, things are looking good. Defeating insurgencies takes time. We've had time and the tide has clearly turned. Defeating al Quaeda in Iraq will be mostly done pretty soon. Defeating the last of the Sunni dead-enders might take longer, or it might not -- Ramadi sure looks good. But getting the Baghdad politicians to stop acting like Arabs and to instead act like patriots... there's the rub.

1. Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggert have written an impressive new book. It's called .......... "Ministers Do More Than Lay People."

2. Transvestite: A guy who likes to eat, drink and be Mary.

3. The difference between the Pope and your boss, the Pope only expects you to kiss his ring.

4. My mind works like lightning, One brilliant flash and it is gone.

5. The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you're in the bathroom.

6. I hate sex in the movies. Tried it once. The seat folded up, the drink spilled and that ice, well, it really chilled the mood.

7. It used to be only death and taxes were inevitable Now, of course, there's shipping and handling, too.

8.. A husband is someone who, after taking the trash out, gives the impression that he just cleaned the whole house. (Hey! I resemble that remark! - THC)

9. My next house will have no kitchen - just vending machines and a large trash can.

10. A blonde said, "I was worried that my mechanic might try to rip me off. I was relieved when he told me all I needed was turn signal fluid."

11. My neighbor was bit by a stray rabid dog. I went to see how he was and found him writing frantically on a piece of paper. I told him rabies could be treated, and he didn't have to worry about a Will. He said, "Will? What Will? I'm making a list Of the people I want to bite."

12. As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way.

The 2007 hurricane season may be less severe than forecast due to cooler-than-expected water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, private forecaster WSI Corp said on Tuesday.

The season will bring 14 named storms, of which six will become hurricanes and three will become major hurricanes, WSI said in its revised outlook. ...

I can live with that. If true, it will be very interesting to see what happens in the insurance situation in Florida which is beyond out of control. The amount of money piled up by the state's insurance companies will be so huge that all kinds of aggressive things will be attracted to it. But first, we need to get through this coming quiet storm season.

I used to post often about the MainStream Media (which I want to call the Old Media but nobody will play along dammit). I was thinking last night as I drove home that I haven't written a post like that in a long time, and the reason is obvious -- I just don't connect to the MSM anymore.

Back in May, we got in a pissing contest with Brighthouse, our local cable TV provider, and told them to get their stuff out of our house. Which they did. So for a bit over two months we've had no TV here (full disclosure - we did go over to friends' houses for the final episodes of American Idol and The Sopranos) and thus not even any accidental exposure to TV news. I stopped taking The St. Petersburg Times over 12 years ago when I grew disgusted by their pacifist anti-Americanism, and saw no reason then or now to re-subscribe.

I get my news here, from the links I show on my blog over to the left, and from the radio. I honestly don't know for sure who the main broadcast news anchors are right now -- I know CBS is fronting a woman, and I think she's Katie Couric, but I'm not sure and I wouldn't recognize her face in a line up. I just haven't been exposed to the quite relentless propaganda of defeat and Bush-sucks-ism that many of my unfortunate fellow Americans are immersed in. The name of a single editor of a big city newspaper? Please! What do I care?

Congress's attempt to lose the war is so hard for me to believe that it's difficult for me to talk about it. I'm shocked.

Either those are the most despicable bunch of Quislings ever gathered in Washington, DC or their information bubble is so tightly self-contained and impenetrable that they might as well be deaf, dumb, and blind.

Violation of the Lacey Act, violation of the Bald Eagle Protection Act

BHATKA, Tansukhlal

Income tax evasion

BLAMPIED, David Roscoe

Ketchum

,

Idaho

Conspiracy to distribute cocaine

BORDERS, William Arthur, Jr.

Washington

,

D.C.

Conspiracy to corruptly solicit and accept money in return for influencing the official acts of a federal district court judge (Alcee L. Hastings), and to defraud the United States in connection with the performance of lawful government functions; corruptly influencing, obstructing, impeding and endeavoring to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice, and aiding and abetting therein; traveling interstate with intent to commit bribery

BOREL, Arthur David

Little Rock

,

Arkansas

Odometer rollback

BOREL, Douglas Charles

Conway

,

Arkansas

Odometer rollback

BRABHAM, George Thomas

Austin

,

Texas

Making a false statement or report to a federally insured bank

BRASWELL, Almon Glenn

Doravilla

,

Georgia

Conspiracy to defraud government with respect to claims; perjury

BROWDER, Leonard

Aiken

,

South Carolina

Illegal dispensing of controlled substance and Medicaid fraud

BROWN, David Steven

New York

,

New York

Securities fraud and mail fraud

BURLESON, Delores Caroylene, aka Delores Cox Burleson

Hanna

,

Oklahoma

Possession of marijuana

BUSTAMANTE, John H.

Cleveland

,

Ohio

Wire fraud

CAMPBELL, Mary Louise

Ruleville

,

Mississippi

Aiding and abetting the unauthorized use and transfer of food stamps

CANDELARIA, Eloida

False information in registering to vote

CAPILI, Dennis Sobrevinas

Glendale

,

California

Filing false statements in alien registration

CHAMBERS, Donna Denise

Memphis

,

Tennessee

Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute cocaine, possession with intent to distribute cocaine, use of a telephone to facilitate cocaine conspiracy

Seen at low tide

HummingbirdFinally, my first hummingbirds. Saw them on a fire bush in Crystal Beach, FL. My rental's neighbor's yard is all xeriscaped, which is ugly to me but just fine with the little hummers. At first, I thought they were the biggest hornets I'd ever seen.

Flamingo!One of these dudes flew right over my house. I couldn't believe it. And please don't tell me it was a roseated spoonbill because it was a frickin' flamingo, dude! Huge and pink and right there above me. I was like so freaking out, you know?

Black SkimmerThese beauties are getting scarce, but one flew by yesterday at low tide on the hunt for minnows.

Dead sea turtlecool, but smelly

Reddish EgretThese have been hanging out around the pool quite a bit lately. Must be a new group of adolesent birds -- the youngsters like to hunt where the water is clear, and it takes them a day to figure out there are not now and never will be fish in the swimming pool no matter how clear the water.

Sand Piper

Brown PelicanI saw a flock of about 200 of these at Disappearing Island yesterday, just south of Anclote Island on the west coast of FL. Good to see such a large flock.

Wood PeckerThey've developed a sudden interest in the orange tree, which just went into bloom.